Cindy Chamberlain
“Do you talk to any of them?” said my boss, Kendricks.
“I catch a train home with one of the girls.”
“Which one?”
“The cute one.”
“There’s a cute one who works in Appco?”
“Hell yeah there is.”
Strawberry blonde hair… Freckles. Skinny. Her name was Cindy… Shortly after that, Kendricks transferred me to Appco because I wasn’t making any sales in charity.
Norton was my new boss. He was about an inch shorter than me, with a voice half an octave deeper. Listening to his morning meetings would half send us to sleep. We wondered how he made so many sales – probably sent his customers into some sort of hypnotic trance.
Then a lot of times we would skip the meeting and just go for coffee in Hunter Street mall, like that Friday when Norton first introduced me to the team.
“This is Juan. This is Ambrose. This is Pauly. Charlotte. Olga. And this guy we just call Pads.”
“Padmavati. Pleased to meet you.”
We went out into the mall and holed up outside Gloria Jeans.
I suppose Cindy was off sick that day, because Pauly started in front of everyone. “I took pictures.”
“Of what?”
“Of Cindy.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, of course. Want to see? I took videos too.” he said to Norton.
Norton considered it deeply.
“Yeah, alright.”
I didn’t look.
We needed to spend a week in Sydney to get training for the new Sintelco campaign. We stayed at the YHA. We were all together in one dorm, guys and girls. Cindy was on the far right side, top bunk. Pauly was on the bottom bunk. I was on the near left side, on the top bunk.
I was having a conversation with Cindy about some bullshit.
“So it’s must easier when you know and have been, etc, and so on, know what I’m saying?” I said, or something like it anyway.
“Ha yeah, and then they ansdn difnmkb kxm…”
“They what?”
“They ………….”
“I couldn’t hardly make out a word of that”
“Yeah, I can’t hear you either. Want me to come over there?”
“Ha yeah right. As if that’s ever going to happen.”
She didn’t say much after that. It was just me being cocky-funny. Not yet socially aware enough to realise that this girl was offering herself, and all I had to do was say “Okay,” and I would get laid, in the same dorm room as all of my new workmates. Later, when I understood who she was a little better, I was relieved I hadn’t accepted her gracious offer. Even from that scene – to put it together piece by piece – Cindy had a boyfriend, and was there in a dorm room in a bunk above the guy with whom she was cheating, and was hitting on me as well. Wow.
I went to sleep.
An hour or so later I woke up.
“What are you doing?” she said.
And then he said: “I’m going.”
“Why?”
Silence.
“I’m going.”
Footsteps. Door opened. Door closed.
I went back to sleep, and when we woke up, Pauly was gone.
Sitting next to Cindy in training, I looked over at her notebook.
Later, as we were breaking for lunch, I said to her: “Is your last name… Chamberlain?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Hm… That explains everything.”
And I walked off. I overheard her bitching about it to Ambrose. She sounded so puzzled, like she didn’t really know what it meant, but suspected the worst.
Chamberlain was the name of two sisters I had known from Maitland. Madison was the eldest, blonde, and had a reputation for dating just about any guy. About six years earlier, I was seventeen. I’d met Madison at an underage nightclub, the Ace of Spades. She was tall, gorgeous, model material, with a huge smile and big-ass teeth. I was like a rock-star at these things, because I dance like a nutcase (and still do). Nobody knew what to make of it, but everybody could see that I didn’t give a shit what anybody thought of me, as long as I was on the dancefloor. Off the dancefloor, I was still awkward and didn’t understand a thing about girls.
“Can I get your number?” I said to Madison as she walked off with her friends through the carpark.
“Really?” she said.
“…Yeah.”
I got her number and called her as soon as I could work up the courage.
“Oh… I don’t know if I can go out that night Jones… I’ve got a lot of exams coming up.”
“Oh… okay.”
The next time I saw her, she walked right up to me at the Ace with her friends and said, smile beaming, “Hey! I finished all my exams.”
“Good for you,” I said. “I hope you get into your course at uni.”
“Uh… yeah, me too.”
I walked off. Six months later, I slapped myself on the forehead.
Then there was another time, I was twenty-four. I walked out of Fanny’s on a Wednesday night and walked towards the train station. I’d been talking to girls all night and was really hyped up. I don’t even know if I’d made out with any girls, but I’d probably went for the make out with at least ten. Walking up the road I saw a familiar face. I kept walking towards her “Hey!” I said with a smile, grabbed Madison and made out with her for five seconds.
“Wow… hey… who? Oh, it’s you Jones!” I got her number again, though, again, I never really followed that through to its inevitable conclusion.
Moxie was the youngest sister, a brunette, and I’m not really sure if she was as into free-love as the other two – however, the last time I saw her she had a shaved head, so for the sake of this story we’ll assume she swings both ways. She was kind of cute and a little chubby, but, also for the sake of this story, we’ll assume her body was out of this atmosphere, and fingerbanged mad lesbians every weekend. Awesome!
So I guess Cindy must have been the missing link in this daisy chain of sisterly love. In the end, it turned out Cindy was the black sheep of the family.
“Chamberlain?”
“Yeah… why?”
“That explains everything.”
“What?? What is that supposed to mean?”
“Everything. It explains everything.”
I don’t think Cindy really talked to me for the rest of the training. Driving back to Newcastle in Norton’s troopy, Cindy started reciting a list of lovers like it was a line of descendants from the book of Genesis: “Then when I left billy for thommy. Later I left Thommy for Christian. Billy was so jealous…”
A few weeks later while Juan was driving us out to the field, he told me a story where Cindy had come over to his place after work for dinner or something, then his mum was like “Okay it’s getting late – I think it’s time for you to go home.” And Cindy tried to talk her way into staying in Juan’s bed. It was the only time Juan has ever been happy about his mum cockblocking him.
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brilliant
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